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Pot Roast of Beef

A pot roast of beef cooked slowly in boiling water to produce a tender meat and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Pot Roast of Beef

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pot Roast of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the meat clean and tie it into shape.

  2. Dredge the meat with flour, salt, and pepper.

Cook

  1. Place the meat in a kettle and pour boiling water over it.

  2. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes at boiling temperature.

  3. Move the kettle to the back of the stove and cook below boiling point for 15 to 20 minutes per pound.

  4. In the last half hour, let the juices cook down to use as gravy.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rump beef
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through slow, moist cooking.
Flour
Coats the surface so it browns and helps thicken the juices into gravy.

The step that matters

Keeping the kettle below boiling point. Gentle heat below boiling lets the connective tissue in the meat break down slowly, giving tender results. A hard boil toughens muscle fibres and can dry out the meat.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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